Washington Blade - November 5, 2004
Lou Chibbaro Jr., lchibbaro@washblade.com.

Commission seats in races throughout the city on Tuesday while two candidates who were rated lower than their opponents by a local gay group won election to the D.C. Board of Education.

The ANC and school board races provided the only serious competition in a general election in which the winners of the September primary for seats on the D.C. Council, delegate to the U.S. Congress, and "shadow" representative to the U.S. House all won lopsided victories.

In the ANC races, attorney Babak Mavahedi of Dupont Circle and hairstylist and community activist Donald Hughes of the far Southeast section of Ward 7 defeated incumbents in races that drew attention from their respective neighborhoods.

Mavahedi, who spoke out for a less restrictive approach to regulating neighborhood nightlife businesses, such as restaurants and bars, was the only challenger to the incumbent commissioners in Dupont Circle's ANC 2B. Nightlife advocates have described the ANC as hostile to entertainment-related businesses in the neighborhood.

Mavahedi's opponent, incumbent Gerald Allan Schwin, had voted with his fellow commissioners to impose a form of "voluntary" agreements on bars and other businesses that critics say were overly harsh and detrimental to the businesses.

In the Ward 7 race, Hughes defeated longtime incumbent Joseph Wayne Lockett in ANC 7E06 following a report in the City Paper that Lockett had been criticized by constituents for not taking sufficient action to address neighborhood problems such as crime.

Hughes said several Ward 7 civic leaders urged him to run for the seat, noting he had impressed community activists with his volunteer work with the Max Robinson Center, which is an arm of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Southeast D.C.

Smith, Reinoso elected to D.C. school board

School board candidates Jeff Smith, who ran in Wards 1 and 2, and Victor Reinoso, who ran in Wards 3 and 4, defeated candidates that the D.C. Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance considered to have considerably stronger positions on gay and AIDS-related issues that were likely to surface in the city's public schools.

Smith received a GLAA rating of 0 because he did not return a questionnaire that the group uses to rate candidates. Reinoso completed the questionnaire and received a rating of +3.5 out of a rating scale of û10 to +10.

GLAA members said Reinoso's questionnaire responses, which were supportive of all the issues the group raised, were not as thorough as one of his opponents, Keenan Keller, who received a +8 rating from GLAA.

Gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and gay school board member Marian Saez endorsed Smith, saying he is committed to gay rights and would be supportive of gay-related issues in the city's school system.

Democratic nominees for D.C. Council seats - Kwame Brown, who defeated incumbent Harold Brazil in the primary for an at-large seat; Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4), and former Mayor Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) - breezed to easy victories in the Nov. 2 election.

Brown defeated a Statehood Green Party and an independent candidate. Barry trounced Republican Cardell Sheldon.

D.C. congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) and shadow House member Ray Browne (D-D.C.) also won lopsided victories. All of the candidates in these races have been strong gay rights supporters.

D.C. Councilmember Carol Schwartz (D-At-Large), another longtime gay rights supporter, came in a distant second to Brown but still easily qualified for the second at-large seat up for election this year.

Final but unofficial returns by the city's election board showed that Brown received 154,305 votes, or 55.5 percent, while Schwartz received 85,885 votes, or 30.9 percent. Statehood Green Party candidate Laurent Ross received 21,211 votes, or 7.6 percent and independent A.D. Tony Dominguez received 14,954 votes, or 5.4 percent.

The candidates with the two highest vote counts win their respective seats under the city's election law.

In the ANC races, three gay incumbents on Dupont Circle's ANC 2B - Darren Bowie, Myron Silverstein, and Ramon Estrada - along with all other ANC 2B incumbents, ran unopposed in their races, ensuring their re-election. Bowie said he considers the uncontested races as a sign that the community supports the ANC's actions on nightlife issues, which Bowie described as balanced and fair.

Gay nightlife advocate Mark Lee, who has been critical of ANC 2B's actions, said Mavahedi's victory on Tuesday was a signal that the voters were dissatisfied with ANC 2B's handling of nightlife issues. Lee said opposition to the other commissioners is likely to surface in the future if they don't "moderate" their positions on nightlife issues.

In other ANC races, gay activists Christopher Dyer and Matt Raymond won separate races in ANC 2F, which represents the Logan Circle area. Both defeated opponents in races for vacant seats.

Gay ANC 2F incumbent Jim Brandon, the only incumbent to seek re-election in ANC 2F, defeated a challenger who criticized him for being too supportive of nightlife businesses. Brandon, like Dyer and Raymond, said he would strike a balance between protecting their neighborhoods from disturbances from nightlife businesses while opposing automatic restrictions, such as early closing hours, that some ANCs have imposed in recent years.

Gay incumbent Alan Roth of ANC district 1C01 in Adams Morgan also defeated a challenger who criticized him for not being more aggressive in imposing restrictions on nightlife businesses.

In Ward 6, gay incumbent Bill Crews, who became the first openly gay mayor in a small town in Iowa in the late 1980s before moving to D.C., won election unopposed in the seat for ANC 6C07 on Capitol Hill. Lesbian Robyn Holden, host of a local radio show and organizer of events for the annual Black Gay Pride Week, defeated incumbent Raphael Velento Marshall in ANC 6A01 in near Northeast.

In the Southwest section of Ward 6, gay incumbents Andy Litsky, Roger Moffatt, and Bob Siegel each won uncontested races for seats on ANC 6D. All three had spoken out against a proposal to build a city financed baseball stadium in a nearby area where several gay bars and nightclubs are located.

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